


The Mourner

by Anorkie



Category: Bleach
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Body Horror, Canonical Character Death, Established Relationship, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24998641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anorkie/pseuds/Anorkie
Summary: Izuru likes to imagine Shuuhei found him before his heart stopped.
Relationships: Hisagi Shuuhei/Kira Izuru, Kira Izuru & Hisagi Shuuhei
Kudos: 15





	The Mourner

**Author's Note:**

> I think what happened to Izuru is really interesting and wish it was written about more, so here’s my contribution.

Izuru likes to imagine Shuuhei found him before his heart stopped.

In his daydreams, someone escapes the wreckage. They see him and his comrades collapse in on themselves and get help. He survives. Daydream: he isn’t blindsided by the enemy. He survives. Daydream: if he is blindsided, he is able to drag himself to safety, and he survives. Daydream: he doesn’t survive, but he isn’t alone in his final moments. Shuuhei is there. He holds him. It hurts less.

Reality: he died long before anyone found him. 

When he was found, it wasn’t because anyone was looking. He himself was a corpse, collapsed among other corpses, all similarly mangled, some beyond recognition. He was only recognizable because his head was still attached and suffered little damage. If anyone ever did find his right arm, it was either mistaken for someone else’s or discarded or both. He isn’t bitter about it. Body parts start to look the same when they are piled high on top of each other.

His memory is unreliable after that, but he remembers being in a hospital bed. It didn’t look like the Fourth Division and that’s because it wasn’t. Captain Mayuri was there. Izuru simply accepted the man’s presence and promptly pushed it aside once he realized there was someone else by his bedside. 

“I’m sorry.” Shuuhei was there, reaching for his hand, gently squeezing. 

Izuru tried to speak but only emitted a pitiful gurgle. It was then he realized he couldn’t catch his breath. An impulse arose and commanded him to clutch his chest, but there was something wrong with his right arm. He couldn’t feel it. He thinks he remembers panicking.

“Leave now,” Mayuri said simply. Shuuhei’s grip became firm—“You want me to save him, don’t you?”—and quickly softened.

Izuru was already dead when this happened.

When he _recovered_ —now, that’s a funny word—enough to remain conscious, Mayuri explained how he managed to do what he did. At first, Izuru felt nothing. And then, contemplating all of the death crammed inside of him, he felt sick. And then, he got to see himself in a mirror for the first time.

He felt sick.

“You will be very efficient in battle now,” Mayuri said, proud. 

Izuru wanted to doubt him. He volunteered himself for missions best suited for the Eleventh Division to test his capabilities. Very quickly, he realized how difficult it was for anyone to hurt him in a way that mattered. He was consistently the last man standing because, unless his enemies destroyed his body completely, he could keep fighting. To him, killing was a necessary evil. He never liked doing it, which is why he often gave his enemies a way out until death was the only option. Now, that wasn’t on the table anymore. Now, he was the strongest person in the game, and everyone knew it. He wanted to kill. 

His old friends watched in horror as his personality dramatically shifted to something too alien to understand. Among them, he was out of place. He made the most sense on the battlefield, so he resigned himself to that world for as long as possible.

Any damage he did take, he returned to Mayuri to fix. That was the arrangement, after all. Izuru was allowed to play person as long as Mayuri could keep an eye on his new experiment.

But then, the war stopped.

Izuru somehow managed to go without seeing Shuuhei up until the end. Actually, he was actively avoiding him. Renji became something like a messenger between the two of them, constantly telling Izuru what Shuuhei was telling him. Actually, it was pretty one-sided. Izuru didn’t have anything to say.

“He wants to see you. He’s worried,” is what it boiled down to.

“Tell him I’m fine,” Izuru eventually said. It was a lie and it wasn’t. 

When it came down to it, confronting Shuuhei was unavoidable. Izuru had been stowing himself away in the Twelfth Division barracks between battles but, before the war, he and Shuuhei lived together.

It was as peaceful as it was brief—their time together. Being so work-oriented, Izuru struggled to adknowledge what was happening between them. It wasn’t that domestic life was unattainable, it just never crossed his mind before then. He was alone for a long time and content with it, frankly. It wasn’t until after the battle at Karakura Town that Shuuhei kept coming around with gifts and conversation. Izuru didn’t question the sudden and enormous amount of time they spent together. Shuuhei offered his time and attention and that was more than most were willing to give. Izuru didn’t question when Shuuhei’s words became less friendly and more flirty; in fact, he played along. Maybe it was desperation on Izuru’s part, but he let himself believe that love could fix him, that Shuuhei could fix him. Shuuhei was the type of man who felt the most useful making little sacrifices for others—sacrifices of time, sacrifices of energy, livelihood. He coddled, he dotted. Suddenly, Izuru had a warm body comforting him every night. Suddenly, everyone had gotten word and wanted to say how happy they were for them. He let himself settle into this new life, knowing it would be short-lived. Could he call that predetermined by fate or self-destructive?

At the very least, he has spent the last few months being a piss-poor partner. He has no excuse, except Mayuri did not take comfort or intimacy into account when he forged this body. It does not need warmth. It does not need food. And it will not feel things the way he needs it to. The vessel may have been saved, but it can only harbor negatives, the worst of his emotions, lashing out at anything that doesn't comply with his new reality. He wonders if Shuuhei still has a place within him.

Izuru returns home with his haori carefully placed over both shoulders. He boils hot water for tea, reheating it until the contents evaporate and the kettle burns over a ravenous flame. The tea would have been tasteless, anyway.

When Shuuhei finally walks through the front door, the sight of him sparks a tiny terror in Izuru’s chest. It's not his heart—it doesn't work like that anymore—but he likes to imagine it is. What he doesn’t like to imagine is the scene that’s about to play out, but he already has, numerous times. Seeing Shuuhei again makes every horrible thing he has thought about himself indisputable—that he is a letdown, that he is selfish. Now, he just gets to hear his favorite person say it.

On cue, Shuuhei speaks plainly, but the hurt is all over his face. “A part of me believed everyone was lying about you being alive to keep my spirits up.” His tone and the words don't match up. 

Unsurprised by his cowardice, Izuru once again finds himself incapable of meaningful dialogue. He goes stiff when Shuuhei hugs him. The action itself feels thoughtless, but it's kind, and it's the most intimate contact Izuru has experienced in a long time. Muscle memory reminds him to breathe, _be normal_ , but he cannot fake what is not there. He freezes, wanting to suspend himself in time so he doesn’t have to face what comes next. It doesn’t take much time at all for Shuuhei to find something wrong.

"Izuru."

Shuuhei feels the hollowed out place in Izuru’s chest and that’s that; without an explanation, he can only hold it together long enough to hide his face before he lets out a cry. 

It turns into a slow-paced argument, stuffed with long silences, pacing, and spotty eye-contact that all say _how could you?_ without having to actually say it.

Shuuhei is a good guy, though. Good, and a little stupid. He always has been. As such, he attempts to solve matters of love with blind acceptance. "You’re still you,” is what he eventually decides. He probably does it to sound comforting, otherwise it is the biggest lie he has ever told. Either way, Izuru needs convincing.

“Show me.” He shrugs out of his haori, exposing his chest and arms, like he is in any position to make demands.

He takes Shuuhei's hands and introduces them to all of the scary, new things that have made a home inside of him. Shuuhei hesitates to touch the raw edges of the crater in his chest, resisting when Izuru coaxes his fingers to feel around the incomplete circle.

“It doesn’t hurt," Izuru says, forceful.

Even with that little bit of _encouragement,_ Shuuhei’s eyes only settle on the three crooked bars that keep Izuru upright. They divide up the hole, but they do nothing to fill it. The entire orchestration of inorganic matter meeting organic matter is uncomfortable to look at, no one would argue otherwise, but just being looked at doesn't satisfy what Izuru needs.

“Touch me." He attempts to pry Shuuhei’s fingers out of his clenched fist. He can’t feel Shuuhei’s hand against his false one, but he imagines it feels warm and clammy. He wants to feel it on him, in him.

“Stop,” Shuuhei demands without any heat. He slaps his hand away in the gentlest way possible, so gentle it’s infuriating. A punch to the face would be less offensive.

Izuru releases a hard exhale through his teeth. It’s humorless, but it sounds close to a laugh, so he accepts it as one. Shuuhei’s expression remains unchanged; it’s just more pointed gazes he can’t handle. He doesn’t know what reaction will satisfy him, but he feels like he might have to go into hysterics to get it.

“Are you afraid of me?”

Shuuhei’s face contorts like he has been physically wounded. The resistance for something stricter can be heard in his voice as he says, “Of course not.” 

As if on command, he takes a step back and squares his shoulders, and it’s enough to shift the dynamic. It feels a little like being reprimanded by a superior, if that superior eventually became a significant other, which is precisely the situation. Suddenly, Izuru is inferior, lesser than, small. It is a feeling he has learned to despise. He wouldn’t be surprised if Shuuhei diverged from their conversation to question his sanity, if he’s fit to serve. Time hangs uncomfortably between them and it dawns on him then.

Shuuhei wants an apology. Of course. Izuru looks best when he is apologizing, head bowed, on his hands and knees, groveling. His rotten insides swirl, bidding him to purge himself of anything resembling weakness. For the first time in a very long time, he thinks about Gin.

"You're being selfish." _Ah, there it is._ "All you had to do was show up and tell me you were okay.” Shuuhei retains his distance but looks desperately into Izuru’s eyes for something he can work with, something he can save.

“That’s what I’m doing now,” he scoffs. “You saw the condition I was in. Do you think I wanted to come back to you like this?” The words come carelessly. They feel like a nasty bout of vomit, except he doesn’t have the sense to mind where it all lands. The old him would have collapsed by now, too helpless to handle his own emotions, and Shuuhei would have allowed him to be weak and comfort him, and that would have been acceptable.

“No,” Shuuhei rasps, appropriately bitter. After a contemplative look, he adds, “I mourned you.”

“I think you have me mistaken for someone else.” It’s actual word vomit.

“Fuck you,” Shuuhei spits. The insult is laced with a disbelieving chuckle, a little hysterical. He backtracks instantaneously with a sobering, “Sorry.” 

The hurt oozes out of him freely now. Izuru should be empathic; this is his _boyfriend,_ after all. His boyfriend, who held his hand when the daydreams did not become reality. His boyfriend, who withstood the silence he forced between them. His boyfriend, who just wants his pain to be acknowledged. Would the very fabric of his very fragile existence crumble if he were to surrender to someone? If that's what it takes to love, does he still want to?

Shuuhei reaches for his hand, the real one. His touch is familiar in the way a dream relinquishes its reality status before settling on _familiar_. Waking hours blur all of the details, leaving behind only a suggestion of what seemed so real. 

“What do you need?” Shuuhei’s grip tightens, and Izuru feels sweat, anticipation, fear—all of it. History repeats itself, but this time he has a choice, and he doesn’t want to be saved.

“I need to be alone.”

**Author's Note:**

> “You don’t get to die  
> and be reborn the same.  
> You come back,  
> but you come back wrong.  
> This is the price you pay  
> for resurrection.”
> 
> —Nathaniel Orion G. K.


End file.
